A high school in upstate New York had the bright idea of letting their white students don blackface and act out the 2009 altercation between Chris Brown and Rihanna. Needless to say, the public is not pleased with the news.

Select students at Waverly High School plastered dark makeup on their face and body to re-enacted the domestic abuse between the former couple. Word of the pep rally performance hit the national news arena after the story was posted on CNN’s iReport by citizen journalist, Matthew Dishler.

Although Dishler did not attend the rally, he heard about it from various people and saw photos posted on Facebook, before giving an account of how the whole thing went down:

At the most resent Pep Rally for Waverly High School, located in Waverly NY, the usual fanfare of cheering for the home team to get them ready was in full swing. As the rally progressed you had your usual cheers and rally cries for the fall sports teams and the football team. It seemed to have done well, with Waverly defeating their opponent 70-21. But what happened at that pep rally went much farther than simple cheers. Three white students were to perform a skit in black face, depicting Chris Brown and Rhianna most notibly. In this skit they would display acts of domestic violence as satire to an audience that included not only students but parents, faculty, and various members of the media and community leaders. None of them stopped the skit.

In an interview with a local new newspaper, Dishler admitted that there is not a lot of racial diversity in the school. School officials are now looking into skit, and will hold a meeting Tuesday (Oct. 16) to further discuss the issue, stating that they are “committed to creating a positive atmosphere,” through their activities, and “need to meet with the whole student body to set clear expectations for our behavior and the impact it has on all people.”

Funny how things like this are never a problem until the public finds out.